Marie

Are you happy with the way your living room looks? It doesn’t matter how spacious, elegant, and comfortable it appears, you can certainly make it look even better if you clean and tidy it up. Seeing as this is one of the most used rooms in every house, it easily becomes cluttered with a lot of unnecessary things, which eventually leads to chaos and makes cleaning it up a real nightmare. Save your time by following these simple steps when the time comes for you to declutter your living room.

Set the mood

Let’s be honest, there are very few people who find cleaning their homes enjoyable and fun. It seems like nobody likes dusting and polishing, but that doesn’t mean you should skip it completely and ignore the dust altogether. If you turn the chore into a game, however, you can finish the job in record time, so use a few tricks to make the whole process easier. Play loud music to keep your motivation; it can be something you never listen to, or you can make a playlist of your favourite hits: heavy metal, hip-hop, electronic music, or cheesy pop music – it doesn’t matter what you’re listening to as long as it keeps you motivated. Blast the music, set the timer, and see how fast you clean up the place while singing and dancing around.

Let the light in

First things first – in order to see better you need to shine some light on the problem at hand. You can start by removing the heavy curtains from your windows and letting the room “breathe”. Plenty of natural light will open up any space within minutes. Keep the windows wide open while cleaning so you can get rid of unpleasant odours as well as the dust. In addition to allowing you to breathe more easily, this will help you see even the finest particles and clean the room better. If you have HEPA air purifier, you can be sure that the air in your living room will stay clean even after you close your windows. You’d be surprised to find out just how important it is to let the fresh air in every once in a while.

Start from the top

If you start by cleaning the floor, you’ll just have to do it all over again when you finish so instead, start by cleaning up the highest shelves. Start from the top and work your way down: remove spider webs from the upper corners of your living room, dust the TV and the pictures hanging on the walls, clean the chandelier and the lamps, wipe the surfaces of your living room and the coffee table, and, finally, clean the windows.

Hit the bottom

Vacuuming is a ‘fine art’, and as a rule, it should be the last step in your living room cleaning process. Before you start vacuuming, however, you should walk around and pick up any small pieces that have fallen on the floor and the carpet such as hairpins, paper clips, coins, or tiny toy parts. While these items are small and seemingly harmless, they might get caught in the vacuum and cause damage or simply impair suction. For best results, you should repeat the process again but in the opposite direction. You don’t have to do this every time, but it’s a good idea to do so every once in a while to make sure your floors and carpets are squeaky-clean.

Use the right tools

Every job requires the right tools, and cleaning is no exception. Because there are different surfaces in your home, you need to prepare different cleaning supplies and equipment: a vacuum cleaner, rags, sponges, and cleaning solutions for wood, tiles, and glass. You can also try making your own environmentally-friendly cleaning solution by using white vinegar, lemon, and baking soda. It’s good for the environment, cheap and easy to make, but most importantly it’s highly efficient for pretty much every surface of your home. Don’t forget to protect your hands with gloves and cover your mouth and nose with a scarf or a handkerchief when you’re using harsher chemicals.

Declutter without mercy

We all do it – we surround ourselves with trinkets and memorabilia; we place glasses, mugs, rocks, shells, and books on shelves. We keep our old toys and awards, and slowly but surely we turn our homes into garage-like spaces full of unnecessary things. Keeping things with sentimental value is important, but you shouldn’t clutter your homes with them because soon enough they will start collecting dust and you’ll find it difficult to clean all of them. Start decluttering mercilessly – keep only the things you really need, put all your old memorabilia in a box and store it in the attic, and get rid of everything else. You can donate, sell it on E-bay, or organize a yard sale, but you shouldn’t put it back into your living room.

Cleaning your living room top to bottom can take a lot of time if you do it right, but every next time it’s going to be easier because you won’t have to do it all over again but rather keep up the good work. This way you will see that cleaning your living room isn’t so bad after all.